Sun-times Plans To Cut Printers` Pay

July 08, 1989|By James Warren.

The Chicago Sun-Times plans to sharply reduce wages of about half its unionized printers Sunday amid a dispute as to whether it has a right to do so.

A company lawyer confirmed to union officials Friday that the paper will implement new wages, hours and working conditions, which, it claims, are justified by concessions the union granted to The Chicago Tribune.

Officials of Chicago Typographical Union No. 16 late Friday sought to have an arbitrator stop the action. That came after a federal judge denied a Sun-Times request that he rule the union could not seek such ``interim relief.``

The contract expired June 15 and has been extended day to day. On June 20, Brian Fantl, the Sun-Times labor relations director, disclosed the paper`s aim to exercise a ``most favored-nation`` clause in the contract, allowing the paper to implement new terms if the union ``grants`` more advantageous ones to The Tribune.

He indicated that the paper would reduce wages of more than half the 140 printers, greatly narrow composing room job classifications under union jurisdiction, eliminate the union role in hiring substitutes and create a

``typographical associate`` position for those hired on or after Sunday, paying $8.21 to $8.55 an hour.

The paper also warned that only 53 journeymen printers, all of whom perform manual paste-up duties in the composing room, would remain at their current wages of $17.37 an hour, or $605 a week. The pay of other journeymen, who handle tasks the company considers out of union jurisdiction, would drop to $11.25 an hour, or $394 weekly, and $9.25, or $323 a week, a nearly 50 percent decline in some cases.

As a legal point, the union maintains that a new Tribune agreement, which ended a nearly four-year strike and contains concessions, a $8.56 million settlement fund, lump-sum payments as high as $90,000 and a lower-paying typographical associate`s position, does not constitute a ``grant`` of givebacks to trigger the favored-nation clause.

The Sun-Times refused arbitration but U.S. District Judge William Hart ordered an Indiana labor professor to serve as arbitrator. The union had not reached the professor by late Friday.

Fantl said Friday the company ``tried to bargain an across-the-board wage cut`` that would have been less onerous to many workers. Union President August Sallas said the union offered a three-year wage freeze but alleged that the paper was exhibiting ``excessive greed.``